It’s a new era at the house of Jean Paul Gaultier, the brand — one that includes sailing back into ready-to-wear (RTW) and collaborating with a different house every season, along with a digital-first business model. The announcements come 16 months after the acclaimed designer staged his barn-burner of a couture swansang — and six years after France’s beloved “enfant terrible” halted men’s and women’s rtw to focus on high fashions and fragrances, WWD reports. Consider the RTW comeback the first expression of an overriding strategy “to celebrate Jean Paul Gaultier, its values, its archives and its history,” said Antoine Gagey, general manager of the Puig-owned fashion house.
The first product volley — a collection devoted to Gaultier’s fetish mariner theme, with a little help from Palomo Spain, Ottolinger and other young fashion talents — just debuted on the brand’s new e-store and on Ssense.com. The collection arrives just in time for LGBTQ Pride Month and includes audacious mesh T-shirts bearing a 1990 Pierre & Gilles portrait of Gaultier, plus a new graffiti print with racy slogans and references to queer and punk subcultures.
RTW will retail from $180 to $915, a range Gagey characterized as in line with the brand’s legacy of dressing couture ladies and cool kids on the street. Pieces customized by the atelier run up to $2,000. Gagey noted that Gaultier, who continues under contract with the house as an ambassador, remains involved in the future of the company, including the selection of guest couturiers. “He’s still working with us on different aspects of the brand, but he didn’t want to play that role of designing the collection anymore. He’s still helping us, giving us some direction,” he explained.
To ensure that the various design projects follow an overriding brand or narrative arc, told in a “consistent and interesting way,” the house has also named a creative and brand director, Florence Tétier, who quietly joined last September, Gagey said. Trained as a graphic designer, Tétier is best known for her creative role at Novembre magazine.
At Gaultier, Tétier plays the role of an “editorial director,” overseeing content across the brand’s social channels, and helping to “identify the right talents for the right projects,” Gagey said. For example: The sailor collection will be backed by a fashion shoot done for social channels, and an influencer campaign hinged on “friends and family” of the house, which includes the likes of model Bella Hadid, whom Gagey boasted has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the house and who frequently wears vintage Gautlier designers on her Instagram feed.
In a recent interview with Vogue’s Laird Borrelli-Persson, Tétier says her main goal is to “keep Jean Paul’s legacy alive.”
—
Photo Credit: PAN Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com